As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect express) is an expansion bus standard for computers and other electronic systems. PCIe facilitates adding hardware to a computer (or other electronic) system by inserting an expansion circuit card into accommodating PCIe slots included in the computer system design.
The PCIe standard includes a “hot swap” or “hot plug” capability, which allows a PCIe compatible circuit card to be inserted or removed from the PCIe card slot, without shutting down or re-booting the computer system.
Hot swap is a very useful feature, but physical access constraints can limit its usefulness. A PCIe circuit card connector has a particular form factor, as shown the example of FIG. 1.
In general, the connector portion 100 of the circuit card includes a first set of contacts 102 and a second set of contacts 104, the sets separated by a space 106. The example shown in FIG. 1 is a PCIe 2.0×16 card connector format. Other configurations (e.g., PCIe 2.0×1 and PCIe 2.0×4) are also defined by the PCIe standard.
The circuit card connector fits into a socket (also referred to as a slot) mounted to, for example, a large printed circuit board (e.g., computer mother board). The example shown in FIG. 2 illustrates several sizes of PCIe sockets mounted on a circuit board.
An example of a PCIe circuit card 302 (such as is shown in FIG. 1) being inserted into a PCIe slot 304 on a motherboard 306 (such as is shown in FIG. 2) is illustrated in the example shown in FIG. 3.
As FIG. 3 depicts, the PCIe card and socket are designed for “vertical insertion,” i.e., for the card to be inserted straight down into the socket.
The motherboard in the example shown in FIG. 3 typically resides within a housing or other enclosure. Once the motherboard (with PCIe card and socket) are fully enclosed (e.g., by attaching a cover plate to the enclosure), physical access to the PCIe circuit card may be difficult or impossible. FIG. 4 shows an example of a closed housing 402, which has been withdrawn from a rack mount structure 404.
As FIG. 4 illustrates, once the enclosure is covered, and the enclosure is deployed back into a rack, access to the PCIe card is severely limited. Although side openings may be available for access to a PCIe card, the nature of the PCIe connector/socket arrangement only allows for vertical insertion of the card, i.e., directly down into a PCIe socket.